The American Spectator

Reader Mail

OPPOSE HER LABOURIOUSLY
Re: W. James Antle, III's Payback Time:

It is too bad that I can't form a black border around my emails, especially after having read the article "Payback Time" It is too horrible to contemplate with Miss Solis as our new Secretary of Labor. I definitely need the black borders for the next four years. The prices will go up, up and up since the unions will be even more powerful than usual.

Merry Christmas,
-- Mabel Rockwell

If indeed this article is correct, and Ms. Solis mindlessly supports unions, America will have a long day's journey into night.

Labor unions are the most reactionary of American organizations.  They cannot understand change; they cannot discuss change and will not look to the future.  This is why American manufacturing has died.  Unions refuse to permit technology; they refused to accede to innovations such as just in time inventory and robotics which vastly increase quality and reduce waste.  Unions' loss of members comes from the inability to work with the industries that sustain membership to keep them viable.

The ability to accomplish long-term employment for their members will only come when unions realize that change is immutable.  It cannot be denied or ignored.  If it doesn't occur in one place it will occur in another and that change brings with it success.  If we look at life itself, we find that few species last very long unchanged.  Extinction is the reward for foolish consistency.  That is the path today's unions have chosen to walk.

If they wished to bring real value to the table, unions would use the billions of dollars they have foolishly spent on the political "finger in the dike" to train their members.  They would be the developers of the workforce of tomorrow, highly skilled and adaptable.  Members would be educated on the facts of life.  You go with technology, work rule changes and above all you everywhere and whenever you can.  This union boss would not be dependent on the democrat party to provide life support.  This union would have a product its consumers would wish to purchase.  Unions would then be viable on their own merit, not because they and a political party force people to join.

But the hobgoblin of little minds rules today, in unions and in the Democrat party.  That team has chosen a totalitarian path.  One man or woman, no vote.  "Do as you are told, we know what is best for you."  Cuba Si, Yanqui No! 

What will be next: political prisons?
-- Jay Molyneaux

I need some assistance.  Please tell me what part of the Constitution authorizes a Secretary of Labour.
-- W. B. Heffernan, Jr.

THE CONSTITUTION IS CRIME-THOUGHT
Re: Brett Joshpe's Protecting Free Speech:

An excellent article and I hope that Congress does pass such a law. I also think there needs to be a constitutional amendment.  That is to say, that no treaty shall supersede the Constitution of the United States.
-- Tom MacKay

We have now domestic terrorism equal in power to that of the Islamo-fascist kind, consisting of affirmative action, diversity, multiculturalism, sensitivity training -- all enforced by government lawyers, human rights lawyers, intellectuals infesting our universities, bureaucratic enforcers, community organizers, Hollywood pinheads, Democrat lawgivers and judges, and many other such societal parasites.

It all reminds me of the communist regime from which I escaped some 40 years ago. There we had "block committees" consisting of Communist Party members and their acolytes who had the duty of spying on citizens living in their block of apartments while listening to their talk and words. Especially the jokes about our "avant-garde" leaders were a prized catch -- such words would lead to an immediate expulsion from the government-owned apartment, loss of job, a stretch of forced labor in a "re-education camp," or worse. If anybody thinks we are living in a free country any longer -- they are delusional.
-- Marc Jeric

NO MERKEL ON OBAMA
Re: Joseph Lawler's Deficit of Courage:

The chances of Obama listening to common sense are  zero to none. What in the world do Democrats do better than anyone else except a RINO and that is spend spend and then spend when you are out of  money. We are in for the ride of our lives.
-- Ken  Roberts
Lebanon, Ohio

THE CIVILIAN EQUIVALENT OF HOO-AH
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Good Sports, Great Sports:

A very loud HOO-AH from a former Airborne-Ranger and if I may speak for my son, a Navy SEAL currently in "The Sandbox," a very loud "HOO-YAH!!! And, a Merry Christmas!
-- George "Skip" Deitz

A JOYOUS HOLIDAY SEASON TO ALL AT TAS

STILL THAT STAR

There is still that Star, way beyond our reach.
What tales it could tell, what lessons teach!
How small we must seem in our tiny orb
So swift to despair, so quick to absorb

The petty tyrannies surrounding us all
When what we really need is to fall
Down on our knees in delighted awe
Before that great light which the shepherds saw.

Century after century on a certain night
What ever we believe in, we all have the right
To forget this world, and as one to stare
At that wondrous light still shining there.
-- Mimi Evans Winship